AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
83 
of cheering his mate during the period of incubation; but 
this idea, gallant as it is, has such slight foundation in 
probability, that it needs no confutation: and, after all, 
perhaps, we must conclude, that, listened to, admired, and 
pleasing, as the voices of many birds are, either for their 
intrinsic melody, or from association, we are uncertain what 
they express, or the object of their song. The singing of 
most birds seems entirely a spontaneous effusion produced 
by no exertion, or occasioning no lassitude in muscle, or 
relaxation of the parts of action. In certain seasons and 
weather, the nightingale sings all day, and most part of the 
night; and we never observe that the powers of song are 
weaker, or that the notes become harsh and untunable, 
after all these hours of practice. The song-thrush, in a 
mild moist April, will commence his tune early in the 
morning, pipe unceasingly through the day, yet, at the 
close of eve, when he retires to rest, there is no obvious 
decay of his musical powers, or any sensible effort required 
to continue his harmony to the last. Birds of one species 
sing, in general, very like each other, with different degrees 
of execution. Some counties may produce finer songsters, 
but without great variation in the notes. In the thrush, 
however, it is remarkable, that there seems to be no regu- 
lar notes, each individual piping a voluntary of his own. 
Their voices may always be distinguished amid the choris- 
ters of the copse, yet some one performer will more particu- 
larly engage attention by a peculiar modulation or tune; and 
should several stations of these birds be visited in the same 
morning, few or none probably will be found to preserve 
the same round of notes; whatever is uttered, seeming the 
effusion of the moment. At times a strain will break out 
perfectly unlike any preceding utterance, and we may wait 
a long time without noticing any repetition of it. During 
one spring, an individual song-thrush, frequenting a favour- 
ite copse, after a certain round of tune, trilled out most 
regularly, some notes that conveyed so clearly the words, 
lady-bird! lady-bird! that every one remarked the resem- 
blance. He survived the winter, and in the ensuing season 
the lady-bird ! lady-bird! was still the burden of our even- 
ing song; it then ceased, and we never heard this pretty 
modulation more. Though merely an occasional strain, 
yet I have noticed it elsewhere — it thus appearing to be a 
favourite utterance. Harsh, strained, and tense, as the 
notes of this bird are, yet they are pleasing from their 
variety. The voice of the blackbird is infinitely more 
mellow, but has much less variety, compass, or execution; 
and he, too, commences his carols with the morning light, 
persevering from hour to hour without effort, or any sensi- 
ble faltering of voice. The cuckoo wearies us throughout 
some long May morning, with the unceasing monotony of its 
song; and, though there are others as vociferous, yet it is the 
only bird I know that seems to suffer from the use of the 
organs of voice. Little exertion as the few notes it makes 
use of, seem to require, yet, by the middle or end of June, 
it loses its utterance, becomes hoarse, and ceases from any 
further essay of it. The croaking of the nightingale in 
June, or the end of May, is not apparently occasioned by 
the loss of voice, but a change of note, a change of object; 
his song ceases when his mate has hatched her brood; vigi- 
lance, anxiety, caution, now succeed to harmony, and his 
croak is the hush, the warning of danger or suspicion to 
the infant charge and the mother bird. 
But here I must close my notes of birds, lest their actions 
and their ways, so various and so pleasing, should lure me 
on to protract 
“ My tedious tale through many a page;” 
for I have always been an admirer of these elegant crea- 
tures, their notes, their nests, their eggs, and all the eco- 
nomy of their lives; nor have we throughout the orders of 
creation, any beings that so continually engage our atten- 
tion as these our feathered companions. Winter takes from 
us all the gay world of the meads, the sylphs that hover 
over our flowers, that steal our sweets, that creep, or 
gently wing their way in glittering splendour around us; 
and of all the miraculous creatures that sported their hour 
in the sunny beam, the winter gnat alone remains to 
frolic in some rare and partial gleam. The myriads of 
the pool are dormant, or hidden from our sight; the quad- 
rupeds, few and wary, veil their actions in the glooms of 
night, and we see little of them; but birds are with us 
always, they give a character to spring, and are identified 
with it; they enchant and amuse us all summer long with 
their sports, animation, hilarity and glee; they cluster 
round us, suppliant in the winter of our year, and, unre- 
pining through cold and want, seek their scanty meal 
amidst the refuse of the barn, the stalls of the cattle, or at 
the doors of our house; or, flitting hungry from one de- 
nuded and bare spray to another, excite our pity and 
regard; their lives are patterns of gaiety, cleanliness, ala- 
crity, and joy. — Jour, of a Naturalist. 
ANTS AND ANT-BEARS 
OF SOUTH AMERICA. 
In the far-extending wilds of Guiana, the traveller will 
be astonished at the immense quantity of Ants which he 
perceives on the ground and in the trees. They have nests 
in the branches, four or five times as large as that of the 
rook; and they have a covered way from them to the 
